From a very young age, he had shown an unusual talent for painting. His work was disturbing, as if each stroke on the canvas captured something deeper than mere form. Critics praised his ability to create characters so vivid that they seemed to breathe from the canvas. But as his fame grew, so did a dark sensation that followed him like a shadow. He began to notice strange details in his finished works: the eyes of the portraits seemed to move when he wasn’t looking, the figures darkened over time, as if something within the painting took control in his absence.

The first incident occurred one night while working late on a portrait of a woman with a vacant gaze. Exhausted after finishing, he left the brush on the table and lay down on the studio sofa. He quickly fell asleep but was jolted awake by a soft noise, like the whisper of fabric dragging across the floor. When he opened his eyes, he saw the figure of the woman he had painted just hours before standing in front of him. It wasn’t a dream or a hallucination; she was there, tangible, her skin strangely pale, her gaze even more vacant than in the painting.

He fled the room in terror, but the figure did not follow. She remained there, standing still, like a living shadow trapped in the real world. The next day, the painting was empty.

That was just the beginning.

With each new piece, new entities came to life. He painted an old man with dark, wise eyes, who, upon...